Seven Must-Read Stories (Week Ending July 5, 2014)
Another chance to catch the most interesting, and important, articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.
- Two-Bladed Wind Turbines Make a Comeback
Wind-turbine designers are warming up to an alternative to the three-bladed rotors that have been an industry standard for the past quarter-century. - IBM: Commercial Nanotube Transistors Are Coming Soon
Chips made with nanotube transistors, which could be five times faster, should be ready around 2020, says IBM. - Facebook’s Emotional Manipulation Study Is Just the Latest Effort to Prod Users
With emotion-triggering effort, Facebook pushes beyond data-driven studies on voting, sharing, and organ-donation prompts to make people feel good or bad. - Refriending Facebook
Outrage over Facebook’s “emotional contagion” experiment shows a general misunderstanding of what Facebook is and how it works. - Super-Slick Material Stops Ice from Forming
The first application of a novel water-repellent material from Harvard could be low-energy freezers. - Smart Home Devices Need to Get a Lot Smarter
Imagine a dishwasher that requires a username and password. Smart homes will require unprecedented effort to ensure not just security but also usability. - Fake Followers for Hire, and How to Spot Them
It’s possible to buy a good reputation on the Internet for a modest price, but some are trying to put an end to that. <